CHAPTER 17
The same night
They always knew where he was, everyone always seemed to know where he was. Had to, they said. Must know what WALKER is up to.
He drove fast. He felt as though bells were ringing all around his head, each one striking a different note. It was raining, the raindrops were making a pattern which he observed while he was thinking of Stella. Our marriage might fall apart, and if it does we will both be dished. He wondered what the chances were: equal each way, he thought, but already his thoughts had moved on. Rosa Maundy.
Rain had begun to fall even more heavily, making the roads slippery so that he had to concentrate on his driving. Ahead lay a short but difficult journey. The new Thamesway Tunnel, opened last year by the Prince of Wales, was just beyond the traffic lights. He stopped on the red, glad of the pause. By day this road and the tunnel would be heavy with traffic; tonight it was empty except for the odd taxi and the over-large lorry speeding south to the Channel ports.
There was water sloshing around the entrance to the tunnel, more than there should be, he thought, but as he got further into the tunnel all became bright and shining and white. Wouldn’t stay white long, the dirt would settle and the graffiti merchants would arrive, risking mutilation and death to pen their messages.
A car disappeared round a curve in the distance, a motorcyclist drew ahead, otherwise it was a quiet night. He had never known the tunnel so empty.
The cyclist was weaving across his path. Drunk? ‘No, damn it, not drunk,’ he said aloud. ‘Doing it on purpose.’
In the rear mirror he could see the lights of other cyclists, four of them in a line. They too seemed to be performing a kind of dance, now they were coming up close behind him, their headlights at full glare, shining in his mirror and dazzling him.
Then they swung in a line beside him. One, two, three, and the fourth cycle drove in front, joining the other already there.
They edged closer and closer, swaying dangerously towards the car, then curving away again.
They were expert performers on their machines, he had to admit their skill even as he cursed them. They were weaving around him in a dangerous dance. Then they shot ahead in formation: one, then two and two.
Behind him four more cycles had come into view and were streaming forward.
All masked, all black-leather-jacketed, shining and singing. Swift and powerful. Damn them, he thought, the Ride of the Valkyries.
They were swinging closer, then moving away, unpredictable and dangerous, forcing him to concentrate on his driving. He knew what they were trying to do: push him towards the wall of the tunnel.
He slowed down, but they edged closer. Ahead the tunnel curved to the west so that the leading bikes momentarily disappeared. Behind him, no other cars had yet appeared. He wondered why, but he wouldn’t have put it past this lot to have blocked the entrance in some way.
He could not decide if the game was just to frighten him or to force a crash.
It could go either way. He knew himself to be a competent, steady driver but not a brilliant one, whereas this troupe handled their machines like circus artists.
One rider had spun her way up on his left-hand side, waved and shot ahead. To avoid her, he swerved slightly to the right, only just avoiding the bike ahead of him on that side. He accelerated away. He could see the exit of the tunnel. The leading riders were there, straddling their bikes, waiting for him.
The bikes travelling with him began to swerve in a curving dance around. This hands were sweating on the wheel, his lips were dry. This was fear, not fear of killing himself (although he would prefer to live and Stella would grieve) but fear of killing one of them. Or even injuring one.
Apart from the death of a human being, his own career would be dead too. He could see the headlines, hear the comments.
He lost concentration for one brief minute, the car skidded in the water and hit the wall of the tunnel, bounced off it and on again and stopped. The windscreen shattered and as he jerked forward against the wheel, he felt a sliver of glass hit his cheek.
The riders sped away. ‘Got you,’ came the call. ‘Got you!’
Happy that he was not dead, relieved that he had not killed anyone, but with a bloody face, a damaged car, and an irritating interview with the traffic patrol team who had managed to be sympathetic, helpful, passionately interested and yet slightly amused all at the same time, he was ready to meet Rosa Maundy.
He was alive, bloodied and very, very angry. They had ‘got’ him, just as they had promised, but he had Our General. His anger was transformed into vibrant, crackling energy.
The interview room was full of people. Archie Young had a sergeant with him and a woman detective, both unknown to the Chief Commander. Paul Lane had come in with Coffin himself and there was a uniformed constable in the corner.
‘Glad to see you, sir,’ said Archie Young. ‘That looks nasty. Shouldn’t you have a stitch in it?’
‘Nothing much,’ said Coffin, dabbing his cheek. ‘It’s stopped bleeding.’ It had, more or less. He was happily unaware of a streak of blood down one side of his face.
He had insisted on being breathalysed, determined to leave no loopholes for critics, deeply thankful that Stella had drunk most of the champagne.
Young felt the energy sparking from the Chief Commander and fell silent; it was alarming. He had heard that such cold explosions appeared occasionally with his boss, but in all their years of working together, this was the first time he had seen one close up. Perhaps you had to draw his blood to get one, he reflected.
He looked at Rosa. She didn’t seem to know what was moving towards her. The Iceberg Man with Wotan’s thunderbolts to hand.
‘Hasn’t admitted anything,’ he murmured to the Chief Commander, ‘won’t talk.’
Rosa’s dogged expression changed slightly as she observed John Coffin’s. ‘Took a dent’ was how Archie Young put it to himself.
‘Can I have a cigarette?’ she said. Her first spoken words that night.
No one answered.
‘Oh, sod you lot,’ she said morosely. She had an empty cigarette pack in front of her.
Coffin sat down facing her. ‘So you can speak, then, Rosa?’ Her lips set, but she gave a grunt. ‘There is evidence that the wood making the shell in which Amy Dean was buried came from your father’s yard. I think you made it.’
‘Prove it,’ said Rosa.
‘We shall. You will have left traces, Rosa, now we know what to look for.’
She shrugged, she picked up the cigarette pack and smelt it. ‘This smells better than you,’ she said.
Coffin ignored the comment. ‘So if you buried her, then we have to look at the possibility that you killed her.’
‘Didn’t,’ said Rosa. ‘I would never kill a girl or a woman, never. Kill myself first.’
Coffin said softly: ‘Oddly enough, I believe you, but I have to tell you that in the matter of Amy Dean, the opinion in this room is fifty-fifty. You did bury her, didn’t you?’
‘Supposing I say yes?’
‘Then I shall say: who was with you? You didn’t do the burying on your own. Perhaps you didn’t do the killing on your own. Was Josephine there? What was her part? Did you initiate it or did she? We know now about the first girl, the very first one of all. Or was she the first? Did Josephine tell you of others?’
Noreen Day, Virginia Scott, Amy Dean, was that the procession? He wrote the names down on a piece of paper, then pushed it towards her. ‘Read it.’
Rosa lowered her eyes. She shook her head, and then shook it again, as if his soft voice was cutting into her.
‘You won’t like prison, Rosa. You don’t like being shut up, do you?’ Valkyries liked freedom, needed it to survive.
‘You’re a devil,’ said Rosa. ‘Rough and mean as the rest of them. Do you beat that woman of yours?’
Coffin sat very still. She knew how to hit hard. Battle had been joined.
The long night went on. Coff
in, then Archie Young, then Paul Lane, then Coffin again. Questioning, and questioning again. Sometimes she spoke, sometimes remained quiet.
As the night lightened into morning, Coffin said: ‘Get some tea in.’
And then, as the mugs full of dark, hot liquid arrived and she was offered one, she pushed it away and broke. Tears began to roll down her cheeks.
They let her cry for a bit, and then asked their questions. How had it been? Who had done what, and when?
Josephine had come to her, told her there was a girl’s body in the woods down by the estuary, and they must bury it. She had made the coffin at Josephine’s request, and transported it in one of her father’s trucks.
‘Did she say she had killed the girl?’
‘Didn’t say.’
‘Did you think she had done?’
‘Yes, I did think so. I thought Josephine had killed her. She was a nice girl, a good kid, but Josephine knew something about her that I didn’t.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘I saw them talking. More than once. They were both angry. Very angry.’
Coffin sat back in his chair, his mood was not triumphant although he had won. A rotten battle, but all war was rotten. Worse, he had used a form of violence against a woman, and he knew it.
He drank some tea. The blood began to trickle from the wound on his face.
CHAPTER 18
Early morning
The three principals, John Coffin, Paul Lane and Archie Young, assembled again very shortly afterwards in the Chief Commander’s own room. A tray of breakfast had been brought in and spread out on a table in the window by a silent Lysette. Coffee, soft, squashy, greasy bacon rolls, with buttered toast and marmalade.
The mood was a mixture of exhaustion and exhilaration, the buzz feeling that they were at the end of an investigation. It was over, they could start to think about other things. Paul Lane remembered that he had toothache and wondered what reception he would get if he smoked, while Archie Young found himself considering the holiday he had booked in Majorca. He might get there now; for a time it had looked in doubt.
Then, aware of the sombre presence of the Chief Commander who was not saying much, the mood went the other way. But was it the end? And if it was the end, could you call it a satisfactory end?
Still questions to be answered, but some questions were never answered, they all knew that for a fact. At the end of every case there were points left unresolved. Real life is never tidy.
Paul Lane drank a second cup of coffee and said: ‘Do we accept that Margaret Josephine Day killed the girl?’
‘She seems to have thought she did,’ said Coffin thoughtfully.
In a confident voice Archie Lane said, over a mouthful of bacon roll: ‘Yes. Kind of a self-confession in the box of papers. A two-time killer … A serialist.’
‘Of a special kind,’ said John Coffin.
‘I agree with you there, sir. But even serial killers have their ways.’
Coffin gave him a wary look.
‘We need some other evidence,’ he said.
The feeling was that they would get it. Coffin would use any modern device and expected his CID to do so with skill, but in the end it came down to old-fashioned basics. Policework was talking, asking questions, using the feet. Writing out a record sheet, getting the details on the card index, collating it all. No substitute for the human perception; computers could only do what someone’s intelligence had fed into them. He preferred to use his own brain.
‘Things fall into place after a bit,’ said Paul Lane, stating his philosophy. ‘I’d better be off.’ He could have done with a night’s sleep, but there was no chance of rest. ‘I’m going across to the Incident Room to see what’s come in.’ Something always had, sometimes initiating action, sometimes leading to a dead end. He hoped Rosa Maundy felt worse than he did.
Coffin went back to St Luke’s Mansions, to his own apartment and took a bath. He telephoned Stella but got no response, not even from the answering machine, she had a tiresome trick of not leaving it operational.
He soon found out why: on his own answering machine was a message from her: Have gone to see Maisie Rolt at Star Court House, great unhappiness there.
He could imagine the unhappiness, he even sympathized, but he hoped Stella was not going to turn into the guru, the mother goddess of the wronged woman. She had enough to do being a successful actress and running the St Luke’s Theatre.
Apart from which, he wanted her in his own life. She was always apt to take up a role and play it, he didn’t want her turning into a mother goddess figure. They had enough with Josephine, who had cast herself as Brunnhilde with Rosa’s girls as her Valkyries. No, that’s your imagination, he told himself, but it was a small move then in his mind to Lydia Tulloch and her production. It was Lydia who had identified Rosa as the attacker of Martin Blackhall. Strange how things ran together, he had seen it before.
Back his thoughts circled to Rosa and Josephine. What a pair. Bad for each other, no doubt about that.
Later, Archie Young called in, standing at the open door, half way in and half way out, with an anxious Lysette hovering behind him.
‘Come in or go out,’ said Coffin. ‘What’s it about?’
‘Something interesting about Josephine Day. It fits in. You wanted confirmation, you have it.’
‘Go on.’
Archie Young said: ‘We now have a vital witness. At last we have flushed out a passenger on the bus to Pickerskill Wood who remembers seeing a woman dressed in what he calls “bits and pieces” travelling on the bus. The chap Coney who seemed to have got lost, he’s surfaced. What’s more, he says he saw her on that journey more than once. He lives out that way, and noticed.’
Coffin said: ‘I wish I had known earlier. Why haven’t we heard from this passenger before?’
‘He was in hospital, emergency operation, says he never saw any newspapers and didn’t know about the killing … When he went back to travelling on the bus, another passenger told him we’d been around asking questions. That’s the why and how. One of those lucky things. And since he went right to the end of the road, he noticed she did. Each time. He never spoke to her and she never spoke to anyone else. Just got off the bus and walked towards the wood.’
‘Pickerskill Wood meant something to her.’
‘He thought she was a birdwatcher or a naturalist, but knowing what we know it sounds more like a check-up or a pilgrimage.’
Coffin made one of his black jokes. ‘Instead, it was where she put her bodies.’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. It’s hard to make out. And what about the girl, Virginia?’
‘If that was one of hers.’
‘If one, then all three. That’s how I feel about these killings … One killer.’
‘Well then, there were special circumstances about that killing, something which ruled out Pickerskill Wood …’
‘She had to get the girls to go there,’ said Coffin. ‘She had no car, couldn’t transport them dead. They walked or went on the bus. The picture is getting stranger every minute. You must agree, Young?’
‘A lot of killings are strange when you get down to it,’ said Young doggedly.
‘And the gap … Such a time between killings and then two relatively close together.’
‘Two we know about. When we start looking we shall find more.’
‘You think so?’
‘I do. It’s the way with serialists. Look at the Louisiana killer; once caught, he confessed to several others. Also the Morningside murderer, bodies or bits of them found buried all over Scotland when they knew where to look.’
‘What about a motive?’
‘Do we have to look for a motive for a serial killer?’
‘We have to dig out something as a label. Even serial killers give themselves a meaning.’
What name had Josephine herself given it? He wondered what language Josephine used when she named it. It must be no ordinary language. Was there a word for
love in it?
Young was muttering something about forensics. Post hoc ergo propter hoc, Coffin thought. We shall prove the case after we have decided upon the facts. It was like Alice in Wonderland. We can believe anything once we decide to believe.
Still, forensic evidence counted with judge and jury, and was held to represent detached truth, never mind if it was no more than expert opinion.
The rest of his day was consumed with other business, which included a visit to his solicitor for advice on his all-important meeting.
Finally that evening he crawled home, to find a message.
Dinner on me at Max’s. Stella would never cook if she could help it. I’ll be there waiting. Come on when you can.
He fed Tiddles who seemed back in residence, brushed his hair and washed his hands, and feeling nursery clean walked the few yards to the Delicatessen.
It was crowded, the whole of the Choral Society seemed to have arrived in a large group, but Stella had a table in the window. She stood up when he came in and from that moment on he knew it was going to be a good evening. For him personally and for Stella, unhappiness all around for others, but they were home and safe. At least for the moment and he knew better than to ask for more.
Stella told him how miserable they were at Star Court House over Josephine and over Rosa.
‘Rosa will be all right,’ he said, without sympathy. ‘But about Josephine now, that’s different.’ He told her the whole story, hardly edited at all. ‘She did kill herself,’ he said to Stella. ‘That means something. And she buried the body, that too means something. She has to be guilty.’
‘So it’s all tied up and settled?’ said Stella.
‘Looks like it.’
They walked home together. He wondered why he felt so depressed when everything was going so well with him and Stella.
It was a bad sign.
CHAPTER 19
Another day, another vision
Just for a moment all was suspense and yet the picture held: Josephine had killed, not once, but twice, and possibly more often. John Coffin, Chief Superintendent Paul Lane and Chief Inspector Archie Young were all of this mind. It was how it had happened. Amazing, unpredictable, unlikely, but that was how it must be.
Cracking Open a Coffin Page 22